


Residuum

by chetta



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, LIKE A LOT OF ANGST, Missing Scene, implied pre-slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-25 19:56:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16667293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chetta/pseuds/chetta
Summary: He expects to find something--anything--but there’s nothing there. His hands shake as they rove over the spot where Bucky had just been, numbly searching for something amongst the dirt and leaves.The Avengers argue; Steve mourns.





	Residuum

_“Steve?”_

Steve turns away from Thor and at first he isn’t sure what it is he’s seeing. Bucky’s arm--the metal one, not his real one--is _crumbling away,_ dissolving into nothing as the three of them track its destructive progress. The crumbling spreads quickly to the rest of Bucky’s body; there isn’t even enough time for the panic to hit him before Bucky is toppling like his legs have been taken out from under him.

He’s gone before he hits the ground. 

The ensuing silence is deafening in its intensity. Steve lurches into motion, forces his feet towards the spot where Bucky had just been. His knees hit the ground. 

He expects to find something--anything--but there’s nothing there. His hands shake as they rove over the spot where Bucky had just been, numbly searching for something amongst the dirt and leaves. 

Steve looks to Thor, still unable to comprehend what has just happened. “Thor.” He’s still panting from the fight. “Where is he?”

Thor doesn’t ask if he’s talking about Thanos or Bucky. In the end, it doesn’t matter. “Gone,” he murmurs. 

Uncomprehending, Steve tries again. “Thor...”

“I don’t know!” he grinds out, his chest heaving. 

Someone screams in the distance, a raw, guttural sound, and Steve’s insides turn to ice as he realizes that Bucky is not this battle’s only casualty. 

There is weeping, too, much closer. The functioning part of Steve’s mind recognizes it as Wanda and his feet carry him towards her. The closer he gets, the quieter the cries become. 

It fades to nothing as Steve approaches. That same strange, flaky dust drifts through the air. There is no Wanda, at least not anymore, but there is a body that Steve vaguely recognizes.

“Vision. Oh, no.” Steve knows before he reaches him that he’s already gone; his armour is bleached of all colour, his eyes gaping and empty. 

And the _stone…_

Steve’s knees collapse as he realizes. It’s gone. 

Leaves crunch as his allies draw near--fewer people than there should be. 

He hears it when Natasha nears, stopping just short of Vision’s body. She sees the same gaping hole in Vision’s head that Steve does and a quiet, strangled sound is ripped from her chest. 

“What is this?” Rhodey asks, voice uneven. “What the hell is happening?”

Natasha’s breaths escape in choked-off sobs. 

The jungle is too quiet around them in the wake of Thanos’ departure. Steve couldn’t imagine before, what it would be like for them if they failed, if they lost. There was no time to consider the sheer enormity of their mission so Steve had just pushed the thoughts aside. 

However, there is no escaping them now as they count the survivors, as it becomes clear that the universe’s size has been halved in the space of minutes. 

“Oh, God.” It’s not an answer, but Rhodey draws back as if it were. 

“They got it--? We…?” 

Bruce’s voice is quiet, haunted, “We lost. Thanos just erased half of everything from existence.” 

Steve turns around, eyes roving over the survivors. “Is this everyone? This is all of us?” Sam isn’t here, his mind supplies unhelpfully. 

No one answers. They don’t know yet the scope of the damage--who was wounded, who was killed, and who was _taken._

“I--I couldn’t find Sam,” Rhodey admits. He wets his lips several times before he speaks again, but the words still come out cracked. “I don’t know if…”

If he survived. 

His ears ring. First Bucky, and now Sam--Thanos’ decision has cost Steve too much. 

They’ve all lost too much, he realizes, as the voices behind him quickly become shouts. It had been impossible for them to work as a team under better circumstances, how are they supposed to play at it now after they’ve all failed in such a spectacular way?

“That stone should have been destroyed!” Thor’s booming voice shakes the very air around them. 

Steve tastes ozone on his tongue--no doubt a product of Thor’s rage--but the sensation feels distant somehow. It’s like he’s watching things unfold from a great distance away, or through a cloudy window. This could all be happening to someone else. 

_Is this shock?_ a part of Steve’s mind asks. This ache in his chest, the tremor in his hands.

Behind him, the Avengers argue on, unbothered by Steve’s silence. 

Rhodey scoffs. “You would have killed an innocent--”

“To stop this devastation, yes.”

“Then how would--”

“Rhodes, stop.” Natasha. “We should have let Vision make this decision when we’d had the chance. You know he wouldn’t have hesitated. We could have stopped all of this.”

Steve turns away from the argument and looks back towards where he’d come. His body itches to go back to where Bucky disappeared, even as his mind cries out against the sheer futility of it. 

What good would it do to stand over the spot where his friend died? To say a prayer for someone who doesn’t even exist anymore?

A voice Steve doesn’t recognize, insolent anger straining against their composure, breaks through the numbing ache. “Now hold on a second, you’re meaning to tell me that you chose this fucking robot over saving the entire galaxy?” 

“I--”

“We couldn’t--”

“Vision was--”

Voices overlap, the cacophony of sound cutting through the silence of the jungle. Steve heaves himself to his feet and walks towards the light peeking through the trees. 

The battlefield is strewn with the bodies of Thanos’ servants; black dust dances on the breeze. He climbs over corpses and between the grooves in the ground made by Thanos’ giant machines. T’Challa’s soldiers look at him with something akin to desperation--they are just as scared as him, he realizes. 

“Captain Rogers!” one of them calls out, but Steve just keeps walking. 

He can’t muster the strength to face them now. Not after the loss of so much. 

It takes him a while before his feet manage to carry him to a place untouched by the battle. Here the tall grass reaches almost to his waist--here he can’t hear the cries of the survivors. 

The sun is just beginning to set now. Steve sinks bodily to the ground; the dry grass brushes against his face.

Steve hasn’t cried in ages—not really, not since before the ice.

A gust of wind stirs the air, disturbing the settled remains and scattering them across Steve’s arms. Who was this? He wonders absently, bile crawling into his throat. Wanda? Sam? _Bucky?_

His friend’s face swims in his thoughts--smiling once again after too long, and now--

Steve’s next breath turns into a sob and suddenly he can’t stop the onslaught. He claws at his arms as tears stream down his face. He’s given too much--lost too much.

He remembers Bucky’s hand on his face, so gentle that it had been painful, and the few soft words before the battle. “Later. We’ll talk later, Steve. I promise.” 

There will be time to be strong tomorrow, time to take inventory, to make plans, to _avenge._

For now, Steve just mourns.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! Thanks for giving this a read--I hope everyone is just as upset by it as I was while writing it. I was thinking of doing a part II either following Tony as he deals with the immediate fallout of the snap or something about the whole team mourning together. Drop me a comment and let me know what you think!
> 
> As always, comments/kudos are appreciated!


End file.
